On the weekend I looked after a friend’s house, it was so peaceful and such a wonderful place to have some rest and relaxation, if you don’t count the feeding the cats, chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, horses, peacocks and guinea pig! Anyway if you want to get away there is always some draw backs 🙂 But they have such a lovely pool area and BBQ that I invited a few friends over for a BBQ…
Well you know there is always left overs, I tried to be very clever and not make too much food, and I pretty much succeeded in all but the meat department (Cam and Nicki went home with the left over potato bake and sausages).
So tonight I though I need to use up the left over steak, I wanted something light and fresh and all I could think of was Thai Beef Salad.
I have made, tweaked and changed this dressing (it is the most important part of the salad) many times, but I think that I have it just about right for my palate! If you want it hotter add a hot sauce to the mix, I do often as I like a bit of heat! It makes enough dressing for 4 salads as whole meals, or you could easily spread it out for more… The recipe is very easily doubled so it can feed a lot more and is very easy to make.
Ingredients – Dressing
3 Cloves of Garlic
50ml (g) Grapeseed Oil
25ml (g) Fish Sauce
25ml (g) Soya Sauce (I use Tamari)
25ml (g) Peanut Oil
50g Chilli Jam (see recipe below or use sweet chilli sauce)
10ml (g) Sesame Oil
50ml (g) White Wine Vinegar
Ingredients – Salad
600 – 1000g of Cooked Rump Steak
Mixed Lettuce
4 Green Shallots
Fresh Bean Shoots
1 red capsicum
1 – 2 Lebanese Cucumbers
1 Bunch Coriander, leaves only (if you don’t like coriander use parsley)
Large Red Chilli (optional)
Crushed Peanuts (optional)
Fried Onions*
* you can find fried onions in the supermarket now but easy to get at you local asian store. You could also add some crushed peanuts as well, it just much tastier with a bit of textural crunch to it.
Method – Dressing
1. Crush garlic into a small saucepan and place in grapeseed oil and sauté until tender.
2. Remove from heat and place all the ingredients into the saucepan and whisk until well combined and ingredients is emulsified.
3. Pour dressing over cut meat to marinate while you get the salad ingredients together.
Method – Salad
1. Place finely chop shallots, and chilli (optional) roughly chop lettuce, capsicum and cucumbers, bean shoots and coriander leaves into a large bowl and toss well.
2. Gently place marinated meat onto the tossed salad and garnish with crushed peanuts and or fried onions. you could spoon a bit more of the dressing over the rest of the salad if you like or leave some for another meal!
3. Serve… you can serve this individually or on a large platter…
THERMOMIX METHOD
1. Place garlic into mixing bowl and add grapeseed oil and sauté 3 minutes/Varoma/speed 1.
2. Place all other ingredients into the mixing bowl and mix 15 seconds/speed 5.
3. Pour dressing over cut meat to marinate while you get the salad ingredients together.
4. Make up salad ingredients as per conventional method.
If you have an allergy to peanuts, just substitute the peanut oil for another oil you can eat! I you don’t like beef, you could also use left over BBQ chicken, or cooked chicken and it tastes just as nice.
I tend to make this dressing for me and put it in a glad jar in the fridge, tonight I decided (as I had too much meat for just one meal) to leave the meat in the dressing in the fridge for tomorrows lunch, so I think it will be even better tomorrow, I will just have to warm it up a little to take the fridge chill off!
I thought I should also let you know that apart from the capsicum and bean shoots the rest of the salad stuff, cam from my garden, so a very cheap meal for me as I also had all the other ingredients in the cupboard already! growing a little herb garden with some lettuce, shallots and chillies can save you heaps of money and everything is always fresh!
So I hope that you like my version of this tasty dish, let me know what you think!
Enjoy Irresponsibly!
Liz xx
Chilli Jam (Thermomix Method Included)
Quinoa and Corn Salad with Cucumber dressing (Thermomix Method Included)
Sweet Potato Salad with Baked Philly Cheese
Brown Rice Salad (Thermomix Method Included)
Oh how fabulous, sounds fun looking after Noah’s Ark. LOL!
Thai beef salad is like one of the BEST things EVER, it features often on our week day dinner menus, simple, healthy and oh so freakin tasty.
LOL yes I know, but it was a nice break! I have it all the time… I open just cook meat to make it on purpose rather than just using leftover now! Liz xx
How lovely to have some time away and I do like the sound of owning a property where I can have so many different animals. The Thai beef salad looks really good and I love it with a bit of heat in the dressing too xx
Perfect thing to make LIZ. I love Thai beef salad. I dont understand all that thermomix stuff cause thai dressing is so easy to make but I would eat it all the same if you made it. Hope you enjoyed your mini break even if you did have all the animals to feed.
I agree Tania… it is very easy 🙂 but lots of people like to use their Thermi for everything, so chop, cook and saute the garlic is easy and then adding everything else. I just do it because there are some non foodies out there that really need everything step by step… 🙂 I often get the pan out as a novelty now because I choose to cook that way… However I am a Thermomix consultant and lots of my customers love that I convert as much as I can to the Thermomix 🙂 even dressings! Thanks for dropping by! Liz xx